Cheeky Sengis make début at Chester Zoo

The
tiny newcomers, which are also known as round eared elephant-shrews, were born
at the zoo for the very first time during the summer in a special behind-the-scenes
breeding facility.

Now three-months-old and fully grown, the duo are the first of their kind to ever
go on show to visitors at Chester.

Bizarrely, the tiny creatures are not thought to be directly linked to their
shrew cousins in other parts of the world and are more closely related to
elephants, and are amongst very few mammals that naturally pair up for life.

James Andrewes, assistant team manager at
Chester Zoo, said:

“They might look like a shrew but, fascinatingly, our new arrivals are in fact
distantly related to manatees, aardvarks, hyraxes and elephants. In the past the
species was commonly known as the elephant-shrew but many biologists are now
referring to them as sengi so as not to confuse them with true shrews.

“They’re a really charismatic and intriguing little species and, having now had
our first successes with encouraging them to breed, we’re beginning to learn
more and more about them.In fact, there are nineteen different
species of sengi, which are very poorly known in the wild and only as recently
as last year a new species was discovered in Namibia.

Sengi weigh
between 30 and 45 grams and grow only to be four inches in length, making them
the smallest of the 19 sub-species.

They are native to Botswana, Namibia and South Africa and are found in a range
of habitats including desert, forest and scrubland.